Looking at the Moon
by roane
Summary: The summer they were both thirteen, they kissed for the first time. They never talked about it, just like they never talked about any of the important things, like when Steve's mom started coughing up blood, or when Bucky came over with bruises on his arms that didn't come from an alley fight. (Warning for angst, internalized homophobia. No spoilers for CA:TWS.)
1. Chapter 1

"He damn well must have thought you were worth it."

That's what Peggy had to say. The Commandos wanted to get him drunk, even though he explained that he'd tried that and it hadn't worked. Everyone treated him with the same quiet deference that guys always got when they lost a buddy.

He hated it.

Everyone thought Bucky was his best friend, but he was more than that. And less than that. At the end, Steve wasn't sure Bucky could stomach even being in the same room with him. And _that_ was all his fault, even if everyone said Bucky's death wasn't.

But they were wrong. Bucky would still be alive if it wasn't for him.

They were always together. It started back before they were in school.

Steve was sitting at the edge of a vacant lot, watching some older boys playing ball. Bucky was little like him, but they let him play, even if most of the time they made him chase down the foul balls. Steve was forbidden by his mom to join in anyway. "In this hot weather, you'll make yourself sick. And don't sit in the grass, you have hayfever!" But what the hell, he was only four. He didn't run around, but he liked the feeling of the grass beneath his fingers, and he liked watching the other boys doing what he couldn't.

Until they noticed him.

He was drawing, trying to make the tree on his bit of scrap paper look like a tree he'd seen in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, when one of the older boys yelled, "Hey, squirt, throw us the ball!"

Steve was trapped. Even as young as four, he knew he'd never be good at sports. If he tried to throw the ball back, they'd laugh. If he ignored them, they'd probably come sock him.

Punches were better than the laughter. They hurt less. He ignored them.

"Kid, come _on_. Don't be a jerk."

"Bucky, go get the damn ball." That was Frankie, he was nearly eight and everybody was a little in awe of him because he said words like 'damn'.

Bucky, big for his age,and fast, trotted over to where Steve was. Steve braced himself for a punch, in the shoulder if he was lucky, in the nose if not.

"What, are you deaf? Whatcha doin'?"

Oh _no_. This was going to be worse than punching. Steve hid what he was drawing as Bucky leaned over to see.

"Buck, come on, throw the ball already!"

Bucky tossed the ball back in an easy overhand throw and Steve heard it thud into Frankie's mitt. "Hey, you draw that?"

"Yeah," Steve mumbled.

"Not bad, kid. You know what it needs?"

Steve tensed, waiting for him to try and steal it or tear it.

"You should put a monkey in there, hanging from the tree." Bucky plopped down next to him. "And give him a funny hat."

"Why?" Steve risked a glance over, and saw only interest on Bucky's face, not ridicule.

"Because monkeys are funny, dummy, why else?"

They were instant friends from then on. Steve let his mouth get him into fights, knowing that Bucky would be there to help get him out.

Things were different then. You could throw your arm around your buddy's neck and nobody thought anything about it. Neither of them understood what it meant at first, when Bucky started sneaking out and coming over on nights when Steve's mom had to work. Of course they slept in his bed, you don't put your best buddy on the floor.

The summer they were both thirteen, they kissed for the first time. They never talked about it, just like they never talked about any of the important things, like when Steve's mom started coughing up blood, or when Bucky came over with bruises on his arms that didn't come from an alley fight.

By the time they were sixteen, Hitler was still only a name they heard in newsreels sometimes, and Steve understood for the first time what it meant that he liked it when Bucky stayed over in his bed, that he wanted every minute of those frantic little kisses and furtive exploratory touches. Growing up small, frail, and an artist, Steve had been called lots of names, like sissy, queerboy, even faggot.

Those words didn't connect with what he felt. He would die for Bucky, and he knew Bucky felt the same. Sure, Bucky went out with girls, and tried to get Steve dates too, but that… that was okay. That was just what guys were supposed to do, right? In his heart of hearts, Steve figured that one day Bucky would get married, and Steve might even too, if he could get a girl to talk to him for more than five minutes.

When they were eighteen, after Steve's mom had died and he was on his own, Bucky crawled into his bed one night smelling like cheap perfume, and it made Steve sneeze. He shoved at Bucky, "You reek. Go wash, you meatball."

"No, Steve, you gotta hear about this girl."

He could smell the whiskey on Bucky's breath as he rolled Steve over and crouched over him, pinning his arms. He always did this. He always liked showing how much stronger he was, how much bigger. Lately, he'd manhandle Steve any chance he got: picking him up, once throwing him over his shoulder after they'd thrown mock punches at each other.

He struggled a little, but gave in when Bucky started whispering in his ear, going a little limp as the buzzing he couldn't name filled his head.

Bucky went out with good girls, the type that wouldn't let him do much more than kiss them in the backseat of a car. And afterwards, he came here. Steve loved it, and hated it. With Bucky a little drunk and determined to tell Steve things so dirty they made him blush, it was over quick, leaving them with heaving chests and sticky hands.

"You know I love you, right?" Bucky's words made Steve freeze where he was, four again and afraid to look over for fear that Bucky was about to laugh at him. He finally gathered up his courage and looked over. Bucky's eyes were closed and his breathing deep and even.

"Yeah," Steve sighed, resting his head against Bucky's shoulder carefully so as not to wake him. "I know. I love you too."

And then came the war. If anybody should have understood Steve's desperate desire to serve his country, it was Bucky, but instead, they fought about it.

"What the hell are you thinking?" They were standing outside the second enlistment office Steve had gone to, earning his second 4F stamp. Bucky didn't shout, but gave Steve's shoulder a hard shake, and was loud enough that heads turned. "You wouldn't last a minute over there!"

Steve's pride was already bruised from the way the doctor's lip had curled at the sight of his scrawny chest. "At least I'm trying! You waiting for an invitation?" As soon as he said it, he knew it wasn't fair. Bucky had family counting on him to bring home a paycheck.

"Maybe I'm not in hurry to get my head shot off, not like some numbskulls I know." Bucky let him go, but not before Steve saw that his words had hit the target.

"I'm not gonna get shot," he said, hurrying to catch up to Bucky, ignoring the catch in his lungs. "Too small a target. I figure it's perfect."

"Jerk," Bucky said, catching him around the neck.

"Punk." And then everything was okay again.

The night that Dr. Erskine let Steve enlist, the night before Bucky shipped out, was the last time Bucky sneaked into his room. It was late, but Steve couldn't sleep. He was jazzed about finally managing to enlist, but also hoping Bucky would come by before the morning.

They didn't talk, but just clung to each other in Steve's narrow bed. Steve had never been so acutely aware of the passage of time. Even while they wrapped joined fingers around themselves, even with the bliss of it, Steve heard the seconds ticking away in the back of his head.

The sky was turning gray when they both got dressed silently. Bucky pulled his uniform hat on at the appropriately jaunty angle, and then paused at the door. He held open his arms and Steve stepped in.

"Come back home safe," he said.

"Be here if I do."

Steve couldn't answer, because he couldn't make that promise.


	2. Chapter 2

And then of course, the world changed, or at least, it got a little smaller. And slower. That was an illusion, he was sure, but everything in his body now was running faster. At first he was hungry all the time, trying to adjust to a metabolism that ran four times faster than average. Eventually he figured out how to eat enough to match his new size, to keep his serum-powered muscles going.

Thanks to Dr. Erskine, Steve's world also got louder. And sharper. And smellier. Food even tasted, well not _better_, necessarily, but _more_. Learning to tune out the feeling of his clothing against his skin was the hardest part.

But breathing, that was hardest of all to get used to. Drawing a breath without having to worry what was in it, or if it would be the last easy breath he took. Being able to go to sleep-not that needed much sleep these days either-and not think that he might not wake up.

It wasn't that he didn't have time to worry about Bucky, on the contrary. Nights when everybody else was asleep, he did little else. He knew better than to expect any letters. Bucky hated writing his own name, much less anything longer. Steve thought about trying to write, but what could he say? "Hi, I'm in the army now-sort of."

He couldn't stop thinking of the drawing he'd made so long ago for Bucky, of the monkey with the funny hat. He knew what Bucky would have to say about Captain America's all-singing, all-dancing patriotic revue. And he wouldn't be wrong, either.

Neither were the guys who booed him off the stage. Usually the troops he performed for were at worst politely bored, but this crew-he knew something was different the minute he stepped on stage (and that never got easier, not for a minute-he would rather have stepped in front of a hundred Nazi guns than twenty five American soldiers). These men weren't bored. They were exhausted. Exhausted, and the minute they got a load of Steve's Star Spangled Man outfit, disgusted.

Peggy was the one who told him why. "Your audience contained what was left of the 107th. The rest were killed or captured."

"The 107th?" The world constricted around him, and for the first time since the serum, he worried he might vomit. _Bucky._ Was he in the audience? Was he a casualty? Which would be worse?

It was a ridiculous question, and one he got the answer to not five minutes later, when Colonel Phillips confirmed that Bucky was one of the men who never came back from Bolzano.

_He's still alive. He could be. I'd know if he were dead._ Ridiculous to think so, but the idea that there could be a world without Bucky in it somewhere, smirking, was inconceivable. The uncertainty threatened to drive him mad.

For the first time in his career, Captain America went AWOL.

The isolation ward at Bolzano would haunt his nightmares for years, he thought. The place no one ever came back from, and yet, there was Bucky, lying on a table.

For the first time in his career, having super-strength meant something. He couldn't save Dr. Erskine, they wouldn't let him fight in the war, but by god he could help carry Bucky away from whatever horrors the Nazis had inflicted on him.

Steve knew something was wrong when they got back to camp. Bucky led the cheer for Captain America, even gave him a small, sheepish smile. Out of the corner of his eye though, Steve saw the way his face changed, a sadness there that made him want to stop everything, grab Bucky by the shoulders and shake the secrets out of him.

They had no time to be alone, surrounded by newfound friends and fellow soldiers, busy making plans to actually join the war. Steve had always been an observer though. Always too small to join in, always on the sidelines, he knew how to watch people. Bucky was miserable, and it wasn't hard to figure out why.

When you spent your whole life trying to protect your best friend, it had to be unsettling when your best friend turned into, well, Captain America, right? As hard it was for Steve to be the center of the attention, how much harder was it for Bucky, who'd always been the center of attention before?

He thought he understood it, until that night in the bar. He tried to jolly Bucky out of his blue mood, but it didn't work. Bucky wasn't quite drunk yet, but if he kept downing whiskey at that pace, he would be soon. And then Peggy showed up looking like Ava Gardner. Sure he liked her. She was beautiful, and smart, and best of all, she'd talked to him before he was anyone's hero. He almost didn't want Bucky to meet her-Bucky wasn't the type to steal his best friend's girl, but Steve wasn't quite sure Peggy _was_ his girl, and besides, all the girls liked Bucky better.

Except not this time. "I'm invisible," Bucky complained, when Peggy had given him not so much as a glance. "I'm turning into you. It's a horrible dream!"

Steve laughed it off, and teased him about it. Later, when everyone else was asleep and Steve was trying to read, it occurred to him. He'd assumed Bucky was jealous of him. What if Bucky was jealous of Peggy?

It had happened to him once, back in Brooklyn. Bucky started seeing a girl named Lenore, and it turned into a steady thing. After dates with Lenore, Bucky didn't crawl into Steve's bed, drunk and eager. He didn't need to. Steve had felt-well, he supposed he'd been jealous, but resigned. Nobody wound up staying with their best friend forever.

It wasn't like that with Peggy, though. Steve could barely imagine kissing her, much less-he blushed just thinking about it-anything else. He just needed to-to tell Bucky somehow. That it was okay.

He didn't get a chance for about a week. Bucky and Dum Dum had managed to get into a fight with some guy from the Royal Marines-Steve didn't know they made Limies that big-and nearly got Bucky's head kicked in. The medics would've busted their chops for fighting, so they came to Steve instead. Steve sent Dum Dum out with a kick in the pants and sighed. "You're a dope."

"You should see the other guy," Bucky grinned, then winced when the motion pulled at the cut on his cheek.

Steve grabbed his towel and started dabbing at Bucky's cheek, sitting across from him. "Yeah, I'll bet you clobbered him."

"He won't be makin' fun of anybody's tights anytime soon." He winced. "Easy! What, you learn your bedside manner from Zola?"

It was the first Steve had heard him say anything about what happened in Bolzano. Carefully, casually, he said, "You doing okay?"

"You my mother now?"

"Hey, it's me, remember? The guy who gave you chicken pox?" Steve tilted Bucky's chin, assessing the damage. "I'm just askin'."

"I'm fine." He pulled his chin away. He started to stand up, but Steve caught his arm and stopped him.

"Bucky-"

"I said I'm fine. Don't make a federal case out of it."

Steve stayed quiet while he cleaned up the worst of the blood, then said, "What happened? We were friends."

"We're still friends, what do you mean?"

"It's not the same."

Bucky laughed, the way he always laughed when something wasn't funny but he didn't want to admit that it hurt. "What was your first clue, _Captain_?"

"I'm still me."

"Yeah."

Their eyes met-by accident, the way Bucky was avoiding his gaze-and held. Steve took a deep breath and kissed him.

It was like being thirteen again, everything brand new. He could hear everything, smell everything, feel everything: a nightbird chirping outside, the faint sweat-scent of Bucky's skin, and the press of their lips together was utterly unlike it had been back home. It was… more.

Bucky slammed his hands into Steve's shoulders hard enough to knock Steve backwards onto the floor. "The hell are you doing?" he said, swiping the back of his hand across his mouth.

"I was-"

"You can't just do that." There was something new in Bucky's eyes. If he didn't know better, he'd call it disgust. Or maybe fear. Or both.

"But-" He sat up, debated standing up while Bucky stood over him.

"You're _Captain America_," Bucky said, his lip curling. "You gonna tell me Captain America's a lousy queer?"

Steve had been called a queer and a sissy so many times as a kid it had stopped bothering him years ago. Until now. The wind rushed out of him and it felt like he was having an asthma attack, but that wasn't possible anymore, was it? He struggled to his feet on knees that hadn't been shaky in over a year. "Bucky-back home-"

"We're not back home!" He scrubbed his mouth again like he'd touched something foul. "It's not ever gonna be like that again. It... can't."

At first Steve thought maybe he meant because of the Army. Men like the Colonel would never understand, it was true. "We can be careful-"

"No!" Bucky shouted, then lowered his voice, stepping in closer. He barely came up to Steve's chin these days. "It's not-_you're_ not-I'm not a goddamn pansy, okay? You're a _guy_."

"Always have been," Steve said. "Never bothered you before." It was coming clearer now.

"It was different," Bucky said weakly. "You were different."

"I was _smaller_." Everybody knew it wasn't queer if you were the one on top. And Bucky wasn't on top anymore.

"Just forget it, okay? I won't tell anybody."

Suddenly Steve was tired, more tired than he could ever remember being. "Yeah," he said, real quiet. "Forget it. Get out before you get busted for breaking curfew."

They never mentioned it again. It even seemed like they were still friends. Nobody said anything if Bucky was drinking more, or if he started picking fights with anybody bigger than him who stood still long enough. Steve had to go in front of the brass twice to argue against busting him down a rank. Everybody knew Steve was the reason Bucky was still a sergeant, but nobody understood why.

They started joking again. Bucky cheered him up when he messed things up with Peggy. But there was something between them now, layers of armor that hadn't been there before. Bucky's face got harder, and he went from efficient in battle to outright vicious.

Steve should have seen it coming, but he didn't.

Bucky started taking stupid risks. Oh, he never did anything that would endanger anybody else. After one close call, Steve heard Norita say, "Kid's not trying for a Silver Star anymore, I think he wants a Gold one."

He should have stopped taking Bucky on missions. It's not like Bucky wasn't always a step away from the stockade anyway. All Steve would have had to do was stop defending him.

He couldn't do it. Bucky had defended him for so long when he was at his weakest, Steve had to do the same. So he kept taking him on missions. Even-maybe especially-the dangerous ones.

So they wound up on Zola's train and everything in Steve's entire life hung in the balance just for a few seconds. Not much more than a few heartbeats. And then it was gone.

He'd never be sure if Bucky fell from the train, or if he let go.

Sometimes in his dreams he could see Bucky struggling to hang on, trying to reach up to take Steve's hand. Other times, he'd see Bucky smile a pained twist of a smile and let go. He couldn't remember anymore which was real.

So he accepted condolences from Peggy, and from his friends, but they sat like daggers of ice in his heart.

_"He damn well must have thought you were worth it."_

He wasn't. He hadn't been. But he could try to be.


End file.
